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I have been using Prima guides for years with other games and they are generally helpful. This book is a tome of flavor sprinkled lightly with game information. Don't bother.Two stars for neat-o flavor text and excellent artwork. However, this one is nearly a complete waste of money. I am not a hardcore MMO player and purchased this "guide" to help me along. Instead I find myself sorting through all sorts of nonsensical flavor text trying to figure out why I can't use a certain ability because I don't have some other skill and don't know where to get it.
The install process is a dragged out mess, with no ability to even tell the end user what to click on after you're done installing. This is the worst game I've purchased in years. Its going straight in the trash. I'm not even going to give this away. The Warhammer angle is a commercial ploy to milk fans. The graphics and game play are horrible.
Unlike a lot of others though, I would buy the guide again for what it did provide, because I am very into understanding the game mechanics behind each class, and at least when the game came out (I bought this on like day one as it were) this info could not be found in this detail on line anywhere. I know I'm kind of echoing what others have said, but I found this guide to be outstanding for seeing the details of the different classes, it even made me want to play a few I wouldn't have otherwise. That said, the rest is just big area maps with a page or two telling about the quests on each, not that useful.
Therefore, instead of a book filled with charts and tables, we'll give you a guide to the strategy of using a particular race & class.He then proceeds to give us a book filled with charts and tables. Not the 'good' type of bad jokes, no. The type of bad that you read and go, that's not funny. What no one has mentioned so far is the fact that, if you are a MMO beginner, this book is just about useless. The 'strategy' provided in this guide boils down to which abilities to use, in which order, for each race and class.
Really bad jokes. There are no details about basic aspects of the game- how do you use a particular chat channel, how do you join a party, what is the difference between a white, a green, a blue, and a purple item, etc. So I gave in to temptation. Do we still need a comprehensive guide to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.
There are, however, quite a few typos or other errors. It can't. I browsed through this book, and I was not impressed. Not even a little bit; not even if I was four years old. For example, the Bright Wizard ability "meltdown" does damage based on the accrued combustion level of the wizard, and you do the most damage when your combustion level is between 91 and 375.
Mike Searle starts off this book by saying online MMOs are constantly changing, so how can a book keep up. Crafting isn't mentioned at all. The exclusive in-game item, the Adventurer's Handbook, is useful, and you get one for every character on your account. But my eye was beguiled by the lovely art, and I had a discount coupon in my pocket, and I would get an exclusive in-game item.
Each tier has a list of the public quests, but details are given for only one or two, and these details are only a list of the objectives- there are no helpful hints, like "this boss is particularly vulnerable to spirit damage," or "whatever you do, don't punch that drunk."Still, the purchase was not a total waste. As patches and updates accrue, and abilites are tweaked and changed, we are already past the point where we can expect the Prima-recommended order to still be the most efficient. Do I wish that trees had not died to produce this tome. This is good to know, except combustion can only go up to 100, and then you blow yourself up. In fact, with the release of the new character classes Black Guard for Destruction and Blazing Sun Knight for Order, the guide is already on its way to being obsolete.In the back, there are a series of nice maps of the three warfronts, the tiers within each, and the rank of player expected to be running around in them.
Oh, yes. Yes. Absolutely. Do I wish I had saved my money.
And, as usually happens when you impulsively do something against your better judgement, I regret it. Which is fine, except most people will figure out their preferred action set long before they have all the abilities listed in the guide. It is filled with jargon and slang, and there is no glossary or index, so if you don't know what PBAE means, you won't be any wiser for reading this book. oh, and jokes.
These jokes are so bad, you resent the time spent reading them.Other reviews have already mentioned lovely extra artwork, the tiny print on dark paper, and the grating, 'race-specific' writing style.
Good for class information, nothing on crafting, poor maps, only buy if you like to read about the classes when you are not playing the game, other wise skip this book.
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